a knife, six potatoes, and three apples or long title short story

It's a story with the punchline of, "Did I just come over here to clap for you, Shea?"

"Well I'm sure as hell patting myself on the back."

He nodded and so did the dog next to him.

laughing

It was the way I would keep up. Get up early and go ultralight. If you only had twenty miles a day, how long can you walk twenty miles a day? You'd have to have the funniest guy on earth there to counteract your not so awesome I'm just going to give up right here. Is it awful that I've already given up on the Appalachian Trail, and he's thinking about possibly going this year?


I need to figure out how much it will cost to meet him and hike with him on the weekends.


Today I am grateful for a backup plan. Sipsey in March.

rule no. 5,483,602,915

Hold on or let go but no control.



Today I am grateful to have been taught something 5,483,602,915 times. It means I'm still alive.

waiting

I do not like waiting. It may have been said by a parent of a child, "You are mad. Why are you so mad?"

"I just.              sleep. I know it's sleep. I gotta get sleep."

"You don't have a problem."

"I know. I can't complain. How in the world could I complain? Look how good I have it.
Don't ever stop being grateful. I know that but still I'm mad and it's gotta be okay to be mad and sad and not so glad and why in the world is it cold raining on a weekday making me wait to see if I am required at an office today." (I may have thrown in a couple more choice words)

I do not like waiting because I am spoiled rotten as my ancestors did and would say.

He says she ruined us. He also says, "Shut up, Shea."




I am grateful for a rain and for more work than I can seem to fathom and for the health of those still living. Sometimes life feels like a tragedy, but waiting. Waiting is okay.

be you, cupcake

Today I am grateful for some cupcakes and a race that I won. No matter what they say, I won.

arguing with someone

Here and here.
I stay on the internet.
Must hike today.
(and run up at least one hill)

But before then I want to debate, argue, and that makes me a bully, no less a woman but yes, a mother to a son. We tell our children that they are not what someone else calls them but our argument is that they feel marginalized. At the same time I have watched as the largest man on earth turned into it's most humble servant. I get frustrated that we argue about these things and other things and I am going to change your mind about nothing.


Today I am grateful to understand we all have opinions.

turning it off

I told him. I turned it off. That means that if you need your mama in this world, you are going to have  to call the landline. Remember the cord that could reach down the hall into the bedroom and we'd make crank calls pretending like we were a radio station and someone had called in their birthday. I still laugh when I think about Aunt Maxine saying,

"Well, it's not my birthday."

"Well, this is for when it's your birthday," I'd say and Kim would giggle.

She allowed us to sing.


Today I am grateful for a landline and Aunt Maxine.

Friday night sports

Some things don't make sense, but then some things do.



Today I am grateful for five games, two venues, one camera, three photographers, and more than I have even counted athletes, balloons, flowers, and gifts. Some games are just more like parties.



And then that video yesterday. Hilarity today and coming soon.

food, color, light list of holding on for dear life

1. Get ready.
2. Get there.
3. Upload photos and video.
4. Edit video.
5. Combine art and quote.
6. Take one spectacular photograph.
7. Write about her.
8. See that kid watch a video.
8. Create video.



Are you in class? I ask.
Yes, he is.

But I have to talk to him about food, color, and light and I don't know what to say because I'm not all that great at taking photos of food. I just know I've seen beautiful photos of food. He has done a video and is asking for feedback.

It's great. It's steady. He's traveling at light speed on that software. BUT, I say, because I think you're never to be satisfied to the point that you think you can't be better.

Watch this. Watch any of the trailers or shows included in this series. This is what I mean when I say, "Light and color." You could do that.

I need to see that kid. I want to see his face light up.


Today I am grateful for kids and a list.

you're ready

It feels eerily like the time in the break up of a relationship that never truly was to get rid of the photo on your computer screen, to balance a life which is much simpler, to listen more thus talk less, and be something for someone without asking for anything.



Today I am grateful to serve as a warning to others.

there are slow mornings

There is a morning rain accompanied by the gurgles and spurts of coffee brewing.
There is a time in your life when you may enjoy waking up early.


Today I am grateful for slow mornings.

tuesday

Today I am grateful for lists and sleep and food in the refrigerator. I am grateful for a warm cup of coffee and a warm shower. I am grateful for a phone call from my kid and some time with my brother.

I am grateful for some getting ready music.

participation award

You bottom out people's expectations of you and all of a sudden you're getting pats on the back for showing up to a place. I know I don't deserve the grace I get.


Today I am grateful for new music and possibly someone/anyone wanting to go to Duling Hall on February 14th. I'm looking forward to it.

original

He brings one hundred eight year old music, sits it on the porch, laughs, and says, "This is how they used to do it."


"Yep. Listen to their phonograph and take photos with their digital camera."



Today I am grateful for how that kid makes me laugh.

built up gratitude

Today I am grateful for 100 days and how people dance to get your attention when you're wearing your headphones. I am not grateful she was late, but I am grateful she and I got that time together. She did a good job.

I am grateful for a phone call I have to return which was only an email I sent. I should have called. It seems like, and it's true that, I never look more than six inches in front of me. And she passed that test. That six hundred dollar test that she travelled all the way to Huntsville to take. We knew she would, but she needed that off her back. I am grateful she is smiling relief.

I am grateful for the mother of the bride and the choice she allows me.
I hope she doesn't hate me because I do love her.


I am grateful for the opportunity to go to work.

brickhaus

Wednesdays are trivia night, and we're trying to muscle up the team.
One free pitcher alongside our real reason for being there makes me make promises I don't want to keep.



Today I am grateful for a night out with friends.



Dedicated to them. We may all need some help getting up this morning.

when someone reminds you of someone list

He loves to debate.
She likes to speak.


1 camera
1 playwright
1 poem
2 lenses
2 actors
30 seconds of video



Today I am grateful for the breath I take and the inspiration they gave.

he took a pill in Ibiza but he said live like you are dying

What if you don't have anything else on your list?
If that's the case, then you may be just trying to see what life teaches you.


Life answered a question Sunday, and I was surprised at how okay I was with that.
It's not that I'm done. It's that I do understand how amazing life is.


This is unusual music for me, but I like it. I came close to dying when I was 28. Would not have even known it. It would have been an okay death for me, but not for the guy who killed me. He was a drunk driver, and I felt sorry for him. My brother says he is the one who called for help. I hate that he had to teach me that I had too much to lose. So I thought that I didn't tell God thank you enough. I just started saying it for everything.

I'm breathing. You're breathing. If we're not healthy maybe we're getting that way. And if we're not, then I have to know that I don't understand other than we age as we become less and more. Some of us don't even get that chance. Life gets too complicated if I don't understand that we are all just doing the best we can.



Today I am grateful for a hospital bed in that bedroom, that people had enough sense to put my hip back together, and that first night (may I never forget) when I said thank you for the people who lived through it. And my mother. Good gosh we won't even go there.

I don't care what you tell 'em.

She says, "Have you a drink. Get a little relaxed. Touch him. You know."

While she says, "Keep me updated on tomorrow's fiasco."

The wise, all knowing, been there from the beginning, remarks, "Keep your expectations low."




He laughs.
It's good to laugh with someone.



But yes, the music he left. Good stuff.



Today I am grateful to share a laugh and some music.

the rain fiasco

Ten years ago in a cabin fills a box somew...here. But I've been telling myself that I have to move on. Today in the most current rain fiasco it may happen or it may not. I can live with either.



Today I am grateful for a home, music, bottled water, fruit, cheese, chicken, crackers. And the rain. Many of us have the privilege of enjoying a rainy day. It is good with or without someone.

all the voices in a day

I take in a deep breath and hold it.
She says, "Actively listen to the person talking to you."

I think, "How many voices can I listen to? You're obviously not listening to her if you're pretending to  ask her that question while she is talking to you and she is telling you to actively listen to her. What is wrong with you? Actively listen."



Neither of them talk, but both appear to listen.
I upload their photos and actually see that they did.


Today I am grateful for the ability to listen and for those who found value in last night's voices.

Aight

Como Steakhouse

Como Courtyard

Jimmie Rogers Music Festival

Como Courtyard

Como Courtyard

Como Courtyard

Today I am grateful for long nights and mornings when we light the candle. It doesn't matter where.


Accompanying music.

photography club

I ask him, "Do you think we've bitten off more than we can chew?"

He smiles. "No. We got this."




Today I am grateful for a club, a project, a challenge, a kid, kids.

in service

She kicks me and I look up. Seated on the floor is where I am most comfortable and she's smiling. She's back. Her and everyone else. This is the return. This is amazing.




Today I am grateful for the return of a dream, a collective, a hope, a wish, a yes we can.
And a walk. I'm grateful for a friend and a five-mile hike.



I see it in his eyes when he says, "This is powerful."

"Yes, it is."

creating space

Not my home. Home of the Como Courtyard.

No resolutions, but a vow, a solemn oath to my home. I need more photographs in my home.


Today I am grateful for Marie Kondo and how cute is she?
It's time to tidy up the home by just doing the practices she teaches.


First, ALL clothes stacked on the bed.

can I blame this on a vitamin D deficiency?

"There's too many people," I say.

He laughs.



Today I am grateful for the opportunity to close the door if only for a day. I know I have to walk. I know I need some sunlight, but life can be so large sometimes.


Week 1 of taking the vitamin along with a blood pressure pill and allergy medication and no, I don't want the nasal spray and cough medicine to help me sleep. I just wanted intimacy and going to the doctor was as close as I came to getting it.

signs

I did not finish section five. I chose a bypass road at about 5:00 that night. We could go five miles by bypass or hike a mile up the trail and set up camp. We were already sixteen miles into the day but he didn't say that. He let me and Isaac choose how'd we spend the next three hours in a cold drizzle that evening.

We chose the five miles and set up camp on the side of the road that night. Tents were up and we were  in our warmest fetal positions within fifteen minutes of arriving to Adam's Gap.

Feels serious for a vacation and I do believe there was that moment when I said out loud to them and the trees, "Okay. I see. You set our goal this morning. We're rushing to get there. I am trying to figure out how this could be different from work. How is this a vacation?"

He says, "It's not true what they say."

"What?"

"Do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life."

"How is that not true?"

"Do what you love, and you'll never have a day off."

The music is this.

Today I am grateful for work.

when you're trying to not be emotional

"Love is misunderstood to be an emotion; actually it is a state of awareness, a way of being in the world, a way of seeing oneself and others."
David Hawkins



Today I am grateful for those things that feel true.